Sepia Rain
by maddythinks
Summary: Jane and John are caught in the rain. What does it wash away and what does it renew? Read on to find out..please please review!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything by Jonathon Stroud. But I own my fic. But if I did own anything by him.....ohboyohboyohboyohboy!!!

Hey guys am back with a new(hopefully longer) one-shot. I know what the readers must be thinking..does she even know the meaning of long?? So anyway, a new fic and no new characters..Please read and review!!

* * *

Jane looked out of her window. She saw nothing but a dark fluid wall. It was raining again. She turned back and moved into her pentacle. After performing the necessary incantations, a man appeared on the other side of the pentacle. He shifted in his position, adjusted his glasses and said "You called, Madame."

"Good evening Rifi. Your report?"

"The usual unrest among commoners, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with."

Jane looked out of the window again. "Dismissed" she said, and moved closer to the panes. The reflection of her djinn flickered and vanished. She smiled at her reflection. The imagined reactions of her colleagues for her politeness with the demons amused her. What would they say?

Well, nothing. Because she was only like this when alone. Otherwise her iciness was as permanent as body heat.

She tried to look beyond her reflection. _So beautiful_, she thought. _Well at least pretty_. She touched her cold face on the windows.

She was so close to the glass. One could be the extension of other. She pushed them open and stretched out her palm to feel the moving blackness. They came down on her skin, burned it with their sharpness, reminding her of shattering glass.

…

* * *

Nathaniel walked into his room, feeling welcome in the bareness of his den. It was one of the few nights when he finished his work earlier than usual. He moved to the switch board to switch on the lights but thought better of it. His eyes adjusted to wavering darkness around him. The plainness of his surroundings inspired him to think so much, to do much more. It gave practice to his smooth alter, John Mandrake, to be silvery, changeable and not Nathaniel at all. The cold flint of the walls, the windows and bare floor froze Nathaniel and allowed him to touch reality through Mandrake. When did he lose the capacity to breathe on his own?

The awareness of Nathaniel led Mandrake to the window. He opened the windows, to feel the cold, gray spray of London rain to melt gently into his skin. Nathaniel touched reality as Mandrake cracked under the dark shrapnels of rain.

…

* * *

" _Adalia..."_

_A girl with bright eyes, turned to face her grandmother. "Another song?" she asked hopefully. _

"_sí querido....cante conmigo...._

_algo ella dijo..._

_algo caramelo..._

_Quiero cantar con ella._

_.Como ella canta para estrellas_

_Y bailes en la lluvia..."_

_Suddenly, the girl broke out of her rapt attention and pointed to the sky. "¡¡abuela, su lloviendo!!"_

"_Y bailes en la lluvia..."...._

Jane withdrew her hand and brought it down on her face. The rain dampened her face, and her eyes filled with tears for something so long ago, that she had begun to doubt whether it was from her own memory.

She turned away and took quick steps to the door. A little later, drenched, she sat in her garden and whispered. "_.Como ella canta para estrellas......Y bailes en la lluvia...Abuela"._ Jane started to cry in the earnest.

* * *

John Mandrake shut his eyes and leaned his head against the cold glass pane. The rain came down harder now and wet his face. The drops fell tentatively, and slid down his pale demeanor. Dark eyes opened breathed in the sight. He saw the shimmery, delicate veil of drops line every dimension of London city.

The rain seemed to offer something new, something old. He couldn't explain what he knew but felt remembered fragments scatter around him. _Long ago. A boy and a woman, sitting in the sun. "Very good, Nathaniel." she said and smiled at him._

Where did they come from? "Ms. Lutyens..I am sorry...so sorry", he whispered to the glass and his breath misted the window. The rain mixed with his tears and washed it away, as if it couldn't wait to dissolve the memory. He clutched his face, and his shoulders shook with the oncoming grief. The memories of his boyhood seared his skin as he remembered more.

_A woman dragged a young boy with a torn coat to a well dressed gentleman who stood with a grim expression. "Good evening " he said and looked at them with cold grey eyes. _

"_I want more" said the woman and pushed the boy behind her, as if to shield him._

_The gentleman pursed his lips, looked disapproving, and said"Alright. Take two hundred more and leave"._

"_Mama.." the boy gazed at the retreating back of the woman as she walked away. "Mama....." The woman did not turn back. _

He couldn't take it any more. He slid down the glass as his knees gave way, and cried unabashedly. Unwanted, dumped, here he was left at a corner of his own home, craving for something he didn't know, but wanted all the time. Acceptance. Without the intelligence. The power. The efficiency. He cursed the world he was in, tangled in the webs of slavery. No one was human anymore, just fake shells of anonymity, crawling for an identity in the dark.

Nathaniel was stirring and was steadily burning away the shell of John Mandrake.

* * *

Jane felt the last spasms of grief leaving her as the raindrops melted into the dark green of the quivering leaves of the tree above her. She could feel a soft dampness clinging to her and shivered as the wind blew lightly in the night.

She sat huddled, head resting on her knees. The rain instead of pelting her like it did earlier, trickled down weightlessly, tracing a caress across her flushed face. Her open eyes did not take in the sprawling, elegant Georgian garden, bathed in the sparkle of the night rain, but searched for a sight which no longer existed.

In her mind, a little girl ran across a slightly overgrown garden, her dark hair shining in the dappled sunlight. Her green eyes looked up....

And saw a broken woman who remembered her name last night.


	2. Chapter 2

_Does she know that I am still here?_

_Is my garden still there?_

Jane fought to keep her tears away and concentrated on remembering every craggy nook and corner, as Adalia drifted through her sanctuary of sunlight. …

_She moved through her unkempt garden, her chubby fingers closing in on a purple flower. ... _

Why did she have to bother with the fight? Just let them fall.

_She plucked it, whispered something to it and threw it into the sky. Adalia stretched out her arms to catch it but the flower drifted away in the wind, a dark streak against the bright sky. _

All over again, her face was stung by memories. Tears leaked out and she brushed them away impatiently. With a sudden movement, she picked herself up. Her hands chaffed against the smooth, wrinkled bark as she pulled her numb, cold self closer to the tree. Its leaves, shook with surprise at her action, and sent a shower of icy drops against her skin. She clutched herself at the unexpected deluge and breathed in heavily.

Adalia did not answer her questions. She didn't understand who she had become and replied only with a bright-eyed silence. Her life was spent on something she didn't know, and was told that she moved closer to who she was supposed to be, to live in the real world she believed in. Jane walked away from her sanctuary of darkness, her being hollow without her reality. Adalia had died and there was no calling her back. Even then, _this _was real.

Her bare feet grazed the stiff, manicured grass as she traced her footsteps far way from the elegant lawn. She wandered under the grey clouds, on the path one of the many lawns which lined the neighborhood.

Was there any escape now? If she had become something, could she change it? Even if she did it wouldn't bring back the world she knew. _Then why live as I do?_

She had walked for nearly an hour but didn't feel any tired for this. She had reached the broad, shiny tar road which was frequented by the magicians fancy limos. She could see the dark outlines of the commoners' part of the city. Even at the late hour, some of them had welcoming yellow lights. She was promised that her grandmother would definitely move with her to London, and would be "comfortably established".

"_Hello Cara..I am Michelle Descartes..I am here to take you to your master! Aren't you excited? By the way you are Adalia, am I right?"_

_The woman was short and clasped Adalia's hands as she spoke. A wave of perfume washed over a little girl with dark braids that hung to her back._

"_Yes..and I am 12 years old. Nice to meet you." she replied bravely, looking right into the woman's eyes. Her schoolmaster had promised that such people could give her the life of ambition she had dreamed of. Would her wish come true?_

"_And would abuela come with us..I mean would grandmother come--"_

"_of course" the woman said, tossing her head. "She will be comfortably settled". She gave Adalia an appraising look and said "We will have to leave tonight though. Your grandmother will come later."_

_A crease appeared between the girl's eyebrows. "But--"_

"_You look quite grown up. Mr. Duvall will be pleased. He is such a nice man and likes grown up looking girls...like you.. Aren't you excited?" She gave broad smile and touched her elbow. _

"_Mr. Duvall? My teacher told me that I was to go to a school--"_

"_let's get started alright?" She said, her smile disappearing. " We are late."_

_Two days later, she waited with Michelle Descartes for her master in a London tube station. He received her with an oily smile. "Thank you Descartes." The lady gathered her things, appraised Adalia again and left the waiting room without a word._

_He suddenly came close and seemed to tower over her. He touched her cheek and said "such a nice little girl." His hand dropped to her neck. She moved away instinctively. _

Jane squeezed her eyes shut at the memory. That was the was first instance, followed by the many others......._Stop it!! _

She forced down the painful memories of Duvall's perversion. With a shudder, she remembered how she would run away from his house frequently, with the "commoner's address record" tucked under her arm. S

he would come to this road, and wander in the maze of buildings, asking for her grandmother's address. After two years, she stopped visiting this place. She smiled wryly—_I was so stupid then. I believed his promise. _

Promises were meant to be broken. Jane had broken her promise to Adalia. She couldn't catch the falling flower.


End file.
